I Don't Really Know...

Chapter 24: Painful Truthes

Well, this sucks.  

 

I see nothing….only innocent passer-bys, but no Mila.  Endlessly, I pass by different halls, peek in different rooms with clubs occurring.  Nowhere.  She had never really answered if she was okay or not.  With a heavy heart, I walk back to the library, just when I run into a librarian as I open the door.  She looks at me with a befuddled expression, pointing to a speaker located just outside the door.  

 

“Didn’t you hear the announcements?  The school’s closed.  Just go home.” She rudely waves me away and hurries down to the exit of the school, slamming the door behind her.  

 

“Maybe I forgot, sorry.” I say it with a nasty tone, even though she had already left, which leaves me with no one to hear my snarky comment.  Well, maybe only one could hear what I said.  I hear a machine whirring and whip around to see the janitor using a floor polisher and picking up trash as he goes along.  I see him pick up a paper and begin to toss it in the small trash bag he’s carrying.  It’s in the same exact spot that I had helped Mila with her jacket.  

 

“Hey!  Um...Mr. Janitor?” I say quietly, although he doesn’t look up or respond.  I realize, he can’t hear me over the loudness of the floor cleaner.  I speak up, with the same question, and he looks up with a sneer.

 

“What do you want?” Thankfully, he’s still holding the paper in his meaty hands.  I look at the sheet of crumple paper he’s holding and hold out my hand.

“Could I...see that?  I think it might be mine…” I lie, just wanting to make sure that it isn’t one of my belongings.  He grunts and hands it to me, slowly turning back to the floor cleaner and steering it into another part of the school.  

 

The handwriting is elegant, flowing, connected letters but not exactly cursive...almost like a hybrid.  There’s no name, but I can guess who it is.  I start reading, but it sounds like a diary… which equals privacy.  I quickly scan some words from beneath my eyelashes and immediately get engrossed in what the person is writing.

 

...Pain...my fault....

 

I can’t read anymore with just those words.  They remind me of Steffanie and of what she used to say to me when she felt depressed...I wish those words didn’t exist. Well, if they didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to explain our feelings.  They would get stored in our heart that’s just too small to have everything cooped up.  Then you explode.  I’ve seen it happen before.  I’m not letting myself go through it again.  

 

I fold it into a small, quad fold that fits in the palm of my hand and go up the staircase of the school to her locker, where I’d been earlier that day.  Slipping it into the pencil thin slots at the top, I add a tiny note on the outside.  

 

I think you dropped this.  Don’t worry, I didn’t read it.  Keep strong, -

 

Should I put my name?  I don’t want to risk it.  Besides, she doesn’t know my middle, or last name.  Deciding I don’t want to take the risk, I write, -FL, for Fay Linda.  I don’t think she would figure out it was me...unless she looked closely to my handwriting.  I peer at it.  It’s a boxy, sharp, almost like a figure of barbed wire.  I suspect that she’ll think more about who it’s from and who returned it, then the actual handwriting.  Finally, I stick the paper through the slots smoothly and I hear a small plunk.  I hope she finds it.